The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for supporting visualization of a connection relationship. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for supporting visualization of a connection relationship among multiple components.
Use of, for example, a dynamic page which is automatically generated by using programs every time the page is loaded has made the structure in a website complicated so that the structure is not easily grasped. If the structure in a website is not grasped, it is difficult to know where a web page of interest is present in the website.
This causes a specific problem to arise, for example, when a search result based on a search request to web pages is displayed. Use of a search engine makes it easy to find web pages satisfying a search request. However, in display of the found web pages, information about where the web pages are located in the website fails to be utilized. That is, information related to a search result fails to be systematically obtained.
A technique of displaying the structure in a website is known as a technique described in patent literatures (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-327994).
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-327994, a method for displaying the change with time in the structure, the use, and the information of a website in an orderly manner is disclosed. Many links are present in a large generalized graph structure. Therefore, displaying of all of the links is often unpractical. Accordingly in this method, when a visual representation of a generalized graph structure is presented to a user, a tree structure is used to display only a subset of all of the links which are present in the generalized graph structure.
A technique of presenting the structure of web pages and a website as a search result is also known as a technique described in patent literatures (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-264928 and 2012-515382).
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-264928,a method for performing searching in a website is disclosed. In the method, web pages are collected and classified on the basis of sites in advance, and a tree structure for each of the sites is determined. The tree structure is stored in a DB along with the relationship between each of the web pages and the site. A site search engine performs site retrieval in the DB for web pages which have been hit on the basis of a site search request. A site search result generation/navigation unit generates a site search result having a navigation button for presenting the internal structure in the site, as a link, and transmits it to a site search terminal. When the link is transmitted from the site search terminal, the site tree structure in the site is obtained from the DB, and is transmitted to the site search terminal. On the basis of this, the site search terminal performs highlighting which indicates the pages which have been hit, and generates and displays an initial site map.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2012-515382, a technique is disclosed which relates to methods including computer program products, systems, and apparatuses for attaching a visual representation of hierarchical data associated with resources specified by a search system to the resources. The resources and the hierarchical data may be presented to a user as a search result. The visual representation of the hierarchical data may be presented in the form of breadcrumbs, a drop-down list, or a tree-structure navigation menu.
Thus, traditional techniques of representing the structure in a website in a tree structure have been devised.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-327994, in representation of the structure in a website in a tree structure, a web page linked from multiple web pages is not represented by different nodes in a duplicated manner. The author of the website may employ a structure in which multiple web pages are linked to the same web page, with some intention. The technique has a problem in that the intention with which the author employs such a structure is difficult to be clear.
In the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-264928 and 2012-515382, the structure of web pages and a website is presented as a search result. However, it is assumed that a website has a structure which can be represented in a tree structure. Therefore, the techniques are not those in which a web page linked from multiple web pages is represented by different nodes in a duplicated manner. Accordingly, the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-264928 and 2012-515382 do not solve the above-described problem.
This problem may arise not only in representation of a connection relationship among web pages which represents the structure in a website, but also in representation of a connection relationship among any components, such as a relationship between users of a social networking service (SNS), e.g., a relationship between a user and his/her follower, and a reference relationship between documents such as papers.